"I thrive on failure. I thrive on things that are not perfect. It sends me back into the ring to get it right," he says.

And get it right he did - the Tom Ford brand is currently teetering on the brink of the billion-dollar mark, just eight years after its launch.

"By early 2014, if we continue to meet our business plan, we will hit one billion dollars [a year] at retail of Tom Ford products," he revealed. "That's all the products together: eyewear, fragrance, cosmetics, ready-to-wear, men's and women's accessories. A billion dollars of product with the label Tom Ford on it will be selling at retail."

The 52-year-old also admitted that his acrimonious departure from Gucci in 2004 left him feeling "shell-shocked" and "very depressed", and led him to release his book
Tom Ford: Ten Years
as a way of taking ownership of what he had done at the fashion house.

"I did it within four to five months of leaving. I thought, 'I'm very proud of what I've done and I'm going to claim it, and I'm going to put it all in a big thick book and label it Tom Ford.'"